November 9

Events

• 1862 - American Civil War: Union General Ambrose Burnside assumes command of the Army of the Potomac, following General George McClellan's removal.
• 1872 - Great Boston Fire of 1872: In Boston, Massachusetts, a large fire begins to burn on Lincoln Street (the two day event destroyed about 65 acres of city, 776 buildings, much of the financial district and caused US$60 million in damage).
• 1875 - Indian Wars: In Washington, D.C., Indian Inspector E.C. Watkins issues a report stating that hundreds of Sioux and Cheyenne associated with Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse are hostile to the United States (the Battle of the Little Big Horn was fought in Montana the next year).
• 1887 - The United States receives rights to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
• 1888 - Jack the Ripper kills Mary Jane Kelly, his last known victim.
• 1906 - US President Theodore Roosevelt leaves for a trip to Panama to inspect the construction progress of the Panama Canal (this was the first time a sitting President of the United States made an official trip outside of the United States).
• 1918 - Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany abdicates and chooses to live in exile in the Netherlands.
• 1918 - Provisional National Council Minister-President Kurt Eisner declares Bavaria to be a republic.
• 1923 - Beer Hall Putsch fails: In Munich, policeman and troops crush the first Nazi Party attempt to seize control of the German government.
• 1932 - Riots between conservative and socialist supporters in Switzerland - 12 dead, 60 injured.
• 1938 - Holocaust: Kristallnacht (also Reichspogromnacht) begins - In Germany, the "night of broken glass" begins as Nazi troops and sympathizers loot and burn Jewish businesses (the all night affair saw 7,500 Jewish businesses destroyed, 267 synagogues burned, 91 Jews killed, and at least 25,000 Jewish men arrested).
• 1953 - Cambodia becomes independent from France.
• 1963 - 1963 Miike coal-mine explosion: In Japan, a coal mine explosion kills 458 and sends 839 carbon monoxide poisoning victims to the hospital.
• 1965 - Northeast Blackout of 1965: Several U.S. states and parts of Canada are hit by a series of blackouts lasting up to 13 1/2 hours.
• 1965 - Vietnam War: In New York City, 22-year old Catholic Worker member Roger Allen LaPorte sets himself on fire in front of the United Nations building in protest of the war in Vietnam (this was the second such incident in a week; on November 2 32-year-old Quaker member Norman Morrison did the same thing in front of The Pentagon).
• 1967 - Apollo program: NASA launches a Saturn V rocket carrying the unmanned Apollo 4 test spacecraft from Cape Kennedy.
• 1970 - Vietnam War: The Supreme Court of the United States votes 6 to 3 to not hear a case by the state of Massachusetts asking to allow the state to enforce its law granting Massachusetts residents the right to refuse military service in an undeclared war.
• 1989 - Cold War: Communist-controlled East Germany opens checkpoints in the Berlin Wall, allowing its citizens to freely travel to West Germany for the first time in decades (the next day celebrating Germans began to tear the wall down).
• 1998 - In the largest civil settlement in United States history, a federal judge approves a US$1.03 billion settlement requiring dozens of brokerage houses (including Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, and Salomon Smith Barney) to pay investors who claim they were cheated in a wide-spread price-fixing scheme on the NASDAQ.
• 2002 - In Los Angeles, California, television and film actor Merlin Santana is shot to death while sitting in the passenger seat of a friend's car parked on the 3800 block of Victoria Avenue.
• 2003 - A total lunar eclipse is seen in the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Central Asia.
• 2003 - A suicide-terrorist attack in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, has killed 17 people, during the holy month of Ramadan. This attack comes amid tensions within the kingdom with a surge of Islamic extremism militancy. It has been attributed to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terror organisation.

Births

• 1522 - Martin Chemnitz, theologian († 1586)
• 1731 - Benjamin Banneker, American scientist
• 1818 - Ivan Turgenev, novelist, poet, playwright (†1883)
• 1825 - A.P. Hill, American Confederate general (†1865)
• 1841 - King Edward VII of the United Kingdom (†1910)
• 1853 - Stanford White, architect
• 1869 - Marie Dressler, actress (†1934)
• 1877 - Enrico De Nicola, Italian politician
• 1877 - Allama Iqbal, philosopher-poet († 1938)
• 1880 - Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, architect († 1960)
• 1883 - Edna May Oliver, actress († 1942)
• 1885 - Hermann Weyl, mathematician († 1955)
• 1885 - Velimir Chlebnikov, writer († 1922)
• 1886 - Ed Wynn, actor († 1966)
• 1889 - Jean Monnet, internationalist († 1979)
• 1889 - Claude Rains, actor († 1967)
• 1892 - Mabel Normand, silent film actress († 1930)
• 1913 - Hedy Lamarr, actress († 2000)
• 1915 - Sargent Shriver, former candidate for Vice President of the United States, brother-in-law of John F. Kennedy
• 1918 - Spiro Agnew, Vice President of the United States († 1996)
• 1922 - Dorothy Dandridge, actress († 1965)
• 1928 - Anne Sexton, poet († 1974)
• 1929 - Imre Kertész, Hungarian writer
• 1934 - Carl Sagan, American astronomer, writer († 1996)
• 1934 - Ingvar Carlsson, Swedish politician
• 1935 - Bob Gibson, member of the Baseball Hall of Fame
• 1939 - Ulrich Schamoni, film director
• 1941 - Tom Fogerty, musician († "Creedence Clearwater Revival")
• 1959 - Edward Porter Felt, American engineer
• 1978 - Sisqo, rap music singer

Deaths

• 1888 - Mary Jane Kelly, the fifth murder victim of Jack the Ripper
• 1911 - Howard Pyle, author
• 1918 - Guillaume Apollinaire, French writer
• 1940 - Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
• 1942 - Edna May Oliver, actress
• 1951 - Sigmund Romberg, composer
• 1952 - Chaim Weizmann, President of Israel
• 1953 - Dylan Thomas, British poet and author
• 1970 - Charles de Gaulle, French general and politician
• 1988 - John N. Mitchell, former United States Attorney General and convicted Watergate criminal.
• 1991 - Yves Montand, actor
• 2002 - William Schutz, psychologist
• 2002 - Heinrich Schiemann, TV anchor
• 2003 - Art Carney, American actor

Holidays and Observances

November 8 - November 10 - October 9 - December 9 -- listing of all days

January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

Referenced By